ok at her, in the measure in which she would allow him. "Ah
that may take you far!" their visitor cried as she got up to go; and the
young man glanced at his sister to see if she too were ironic. But she
seemed almost awkwardly free from alarm; if she had been suspicious it
would have been easier to make his confession. When he came back from
accompanying their old friend Outreville to her carriage he asked her
if Waterlow's charming sitter had known who she was and if she had been
frightened. Mme. de Brecourt stared; she evidently thought that kind
of sensibility implied an initiation--and into dangers--which a little
American accidentally encountered couldn't possibly have. "Why should
she be frightened? She wouldn't be even if she had known who I was; much
less therefore when I was nothing for her."

"Oh you weren't nothing for her!" the brooding youth declared; and when
his sister rejoined that he was trop aimable he brought out his lurking
fact. He had seen the lovely creature more often than he had mentioned;
he had particularly wished that SHE should see her. Now he wanted his
father and Jane and Margaret to do the same, and above all he wanted
them to like her even as she, Susan, liked her. He was delighted she
had been taken--he had been so taken himself. Mme. de Brecourt protested
that she had reserved her independence of judgement, and he answered
that if she thought Miss Dosson repulsive he might have expressed it in
another way. When she begged him to tell her what he was talking about
and what he wanted them all to do with the child he said: "I want you
to treat her kindly, tenderly, for such as you see her I'm thinking of
bringing her into the family."

"Mercy on us--you haven't proposed for her?" cried Mme. de Brecourt.

"No, but I've sounded her sister as to THEIR dispositions, and she tells
me that if I present myself there will be no difficulty."

"Her sister?--the awful little woman with the big head?"

"Her head's rather out of drawing, but it isn't a part of the affair.
She's very inoffensive; she would be devoted to me."

"For heaven's sake then keep quiet. She's as common as a dressmaker's
bill."

"Not when you know her. Besides, that has nothing to do with Francie.
You couldn't find words enough a moment ago to express that Francie's
exquisite, and now you'll be so good as to stick to that. Come--feel it
all; since you HAVE such a free mind."

"Do you call her by her little name like tha